


Clockwork

by ForcedRedacted



Series: FFVII [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Time Travel Fix It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:35:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21730912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForcedRedacted/pseuds/ForcedRedacted
Series: FFVII [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566169
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Clockwork

_Ohh, she'd done it now. Things were -horrible-, -terrible-, and she was in -so much trouble-! One of the last of the Weapons created, and every mistake made the web fragment wider! She'd tried sending some of -them- back, and it sometimes worked out but there were more Bad(tm) endings than Good(tm) endings, and when she smushed the timelines back together it was going to just be another bad ending!_

_What was worse, was that in some of the Endings he became too powerful. She was able to freeze those lines of the web before he exited the range of her powers, but still... It was starting to get downright exhausting, pulled in so many different fractal patterns. There had to be something she could do- Ohh, but wasn't that a terrible idea! She could, if she was careful, pass for human after all! She'd certainly watched them for long enough. Wait! She'd already had this idea, only a moment ago! She'd picked the point in the timeline, too, just a little further back than furthest split she had tried. She was running out of cord, but if she could head it off early enough she'd still have room to go through and fix it if she had to. It was a little bit like caring for one of those tiny trees! A little snip here to groom the growth to the -other- side!_

_She wished her shears were smaller. Collapsing timelines together was -dangerous- after all. You had to be either really lucky or terribly clever to get all the shrapnel cleaned up without impacting anything else! What was she doing again? Oh yes. She collected herself, reached, found the stitch and **pulled** -_

* * *

Sephiroth sat on the table in the examination room. He had a nosebleed, an IV drip hooked up to his arm and a raging fever. He was fourteen years old and puberty had just started to hit, voice cracking and deepening and he was baffled by the girl that had materialized out of thin air, with her silver eyes and grey skin. She squeaked slightly as she threw up her hands, the cloud of ash grey hair drifting around her as she did, defying gravity.

"Oops!"

And then she was gone, disintegrating into streamers of ash and silver sparkles.

* * *

_She'd missed! That was okay. It happened sometimes. She hadn't reached quite far enough. No matter. A tweak here and the growing branches of Choice Induced Change withered and died-WAIT! She reached out with her senses to shelter one branch, watching the colours it changed. This... She could work with this. Maybe this one would work! And then, maybe, she could go into the rest of them sideways! Light bloomed along the the webbing. She didn't yet know what she was going to do, but damned if she wasn't going to do it! It was, after all, just a matter of following her instincts!_

* * *

He stared at where she had disappeared, frowning before the sparkles flashed and reformed. With a swirl of still settling ash, the odd grey-skinned intruder reformed and beamed at him.

"Hi! Not an oops after all, looks like."

Green, feline eyes blinked at her, glossy. She reached out to tuck a hand against his forehead, and tisked. "Such a fever! It's 'cause you're fighting yourself. You've got a sick that's confused by the human sick, and the Greasy Glasses Guy doesn't know how to get the two to play nice. Don't worry though! I'm real. Oh! You weren't going to ask that for another few seconds, were you."

"Are you a hallucination?" He blurted the words out, voice cracking slightly.

"There it is! Sort of? I haven't been made yet, but I came back 'cause I had all of an hour before everything went pear-shaped. I've looked and looked and looked and almost every one of the times where things go wrong, it's 'cause of Nibelheim. So, uhh... Don't go there, I guess! I can't stay very long, but I'll try and visit. Don't turn evil!"

And then she was gone, sparkles of silver and swirls of ash that faded from perceptible sight.

* * *

_She'd done it! Talking with -people- was really exhausting! Or was that just the stress of holding the webbing together? Another two had cropped up, and she weighed each carefully. In -this- one, the fever took him, which maybe was for the best? It was just a matter of getting the paperwork lost for an hour. In -that- one, though, he got better aaand... Yep, there it was. Curiosity had driven him to Nibelheim earlier than expected. But ho! What's this? He killed the dragon on the road, was put up at the inn aaand..._

_It burned to the ground. Hmm. Oh, it was an accident. Grease fire in the kitchen. He didn't have anything to do with that, but it made him sleep in the Big Evil Mansion (was it evil, though? 'Cousin' was trapped there throughout most of the important parts, sort of) and then he found the basement, where he found the books, but he didn't understand most of them so he took them back with him and-_

_Ech, close, but Hojo caught him in that one and injected him with more of the Space Sick. It resonated, and he killed himself before being dissected and eventually, through war and strife and Strife, the world continued to turn despite the wobble. She cautiously left that one alone, and marked it as 'tentative pass'. This other one, though..._

_Oh! Now -that- was an interesting choice!_

* * *

Sephiroth sat on the rough wooden chair in his tent, studying the map of Wutai. He glanced about, before rubbing his temples and trying to focus, but between the buzz of insects and the annoying electric hum of the cheap electric lamp, his headache was rapidly approaching critical mass. He wasn't bullet proof, but it was starting to look as if wading into the capital through a river of blood was going to be the only way-

"Hah! You jumped!"

The Demon of Wutai spun, drawing his sword and halting his slash mere inches away from the odd, grey being that floated a few inches off the ground. It beamed at him, even as his chair finished teetering and fell over. He -knew- that voice. Slightly nasal, gleeful, the voice of a child that could have been male or female. A fever dream. Carefully, he lifted his free hand to check his temperature.

"Nah, you're not sick this time. But, y'know, killing all these people isn't going to make anything better." It paused, before frowning. "I mean, you've already killed a whole bunch, so that's already pretty bad, but... Oh! Hey, if you could say anything to yourself to stop yourself from killing these people, what would it be?"

It looked at him expectantly, overly large silver eyes gleaming even as it hovered weighlessly in the air. Sephiroth took a moment to study it as he tried to decide what, exactly, had managed to sneak into the camp and infiltrate his tent. Estimated three feet tall. Small jaw. Grey skin, ashen hair that drifted and floated about her head in an endless, ever expanding web of splitting ends-

"Nooo, stop! Don't look to close at that, you'll go blind!" It was behind him. When had it moved? Shaking his head, he turned to frown at how it was floating over the table, frowning. "I mean, I think you will. You most definitely probably have a chance of going blind six and one thirteenth percent of the time, one hundred percent of the time. Come on! What would you say!"

"Those deaths were unavoidable." Its body was shrouded in a swirling, ever downwards-falling cloak of ash, the pieces of which dissipated into nothingness as they passed the remarkably human-like feet.

"Says you. It was -totally- avoidable. I'm giving you the chance to avoid it right now."

"Theoretically, if you went back and told me this thing, my current self would cease to exist." Fine. He would play it's game for now.

"Sorta? Not yet, though. 'Sides, you cease to exist all the time!" A beaming smile with too wide teeth had Sephiroth leaning back, and he thought over her words.

"Explain." Was it possible? No. It couldn't be-

"You're never the same person twice! And even when you get close, seconds apart, even right now you're not the same as you were when you asked the question. 'Cause you've had a thought and learned a little since then. C'mooon, what would you say to past you that might stop this?"

Sephiroth frowned, before his eyes narrowed. It was -insane-. Still, he contemplated the question.

"I would say... That Wutai is too proud to bend. That in this, the second year, even we have lost our thirst for blood, that we simply want the fighting to end."

"Sephiroth, -who- are you talking to?" Genesis had stuck his head in the tent, eyes widening at the sight of the sword before scanning the premise for intruders, missing the way grey ash dissipated.

* * *

"Pssst!"

He twitched. It was the day of his deployment, and someone was in his room. How had they gotten there? He slowly sat up, green glowing feline eyes searching for and eventually finding luminous silver orbs that lacked discernible pupils or irises.

"You know that Wutai's too proud to bend, right? By the second year, everyone's going to have lost their thirst for blood, and they're just going to want the fighting to end."

"You are not real. Every attempt to prove your existence led me to _pain._ " The words came, hissed out. He knew the voice, and sat up to turn the nearby lamp on even as he glared at the floating mass of grey ash and silver eyes.

"... Oh. Oops? Still, I'm just sayin'. Here." The mass drifted over to the bedside table, before two small grey skinned hands emerged to pick up the lamp he had just turned on. Casually, they snapped it in half, electricity sparking as the light went out. "Proof I exist! But, trust me, you gotta not look into it too deep. You're not gunna find anything. I don't exist yet, after all. Oh! And rememeber, fighting in Wutai's just gunna bring about a looot of death. And I mean, a -lot-."

And then it was gone. Two points of silvery light vanishing into the darkness.


End file.
